How to get rid of ALL ads on ANY site with firefox and the adblock+ helper
Yesterday I claimed I have no resolutions for 2010. That’s not quite true. I do have one: Switching from Camino (a mac browser) to Firefox. Habits die hard, but I just clinched it; specifically, I discovered a method which seems to allow me to block ALL ads on ANY site. google ads, text links, affiliates, anything, really.
Here’s how to do it.
First, you install the Adblock Plus add-on. Next, and this is the important part, install the Adblock Plus Element Hiding Helper. It is easy to install add-ons. Go to the link and click on the [+ Add to Firefox] button on the page.
I then go to a ANY site and see if there are some ads that jar my wa, like debt consolidation, bank rates, credit cards, car insurance, that kind of stuff; usually this means all of the ads. Due to my highly trained scientific mind I am still able to distinguish ads from real content (at least as far as I am able to tell in my deluded state) and so I press Shift-Option-k (for kill, I presume) and move the mouse pointer to the offending ad. And behold, a red box frame appears around it. I can now increase the frame by pressing (w)ider or (n)arrower and moving the pointer around until the entire ad is framed. Then I press (s)elect. Bang! The ad is gone. Forever!
I thus repeat the procedure over the entire site and the helper will add the appropriate rules to the blocking list.
Sites that don’t have fixed heights and widths for their ad blocks now look like with were scoured with borax and brass bristles. Conversely, those that do have such frame now have big empty spaces.
Remember: Money see ad, monkey press shift-option-k.
You can also configure the blocker to ignore URLs that point to click-trackers and other bugs. It is amazing how fast some sites become after doing this.
What kind of blocking do you use?
- None at all
- The default that comes with my browser
- I make my own blocks (like above)
Here’s a simple way to get rid of the ads in your mailbox. To do so you need a dog and a recycling bin. First attach the dog to his leash. Then bring said dog over to the mailbox. Sort out all the advertising. This is usually a fold of glossy paper. Put the real mail back in the mail box and bring the ads and the dog over to the recycling bin. Walk back to the mail box. Grab the mail. Walk said mail and said dog back to your home. Detach the dog. Read the mail. (I used to bring everything back, then put the ads in a bag and once a week walk the bag down to the recycling bin but I found it more convenient just to dump the ads directly.) For those of you who don’t have a dog, I leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out how this works without a dog.
No related posts.